Part 1 (2/2)

It must be confessed that we spent a great deal of time at our clubs in discussing her, especially at the Tolstoi Club; for, as Minnie remarked, she seemed very much in the Russian style, and it was not disagreeable, after all, to think that we might have such a ”type,” as they call it, among us.

Just as we had begun to get accustomed to Mrs. Williams's dresses, and her beauty, and her nonchalance, and held up our heads again, she knocked us all over with another ten-strike. It was after a little dinner given for them at the Millikens', and a good many people had dropped in afterward, as they were apt to do after our little dinners, to which of course we could not ask all our set, however intimate. Mrs.

Reynolds had come out from Boston, and as she was by way of being very musical, though she never performed, she eagerly asked Willie Williams, when he mentioned having lived so long in Sicily, whether he had ever seen Giudotti, the great composer, who had retired to the seclusion of his native island in disgust with the world, which he thought was going, musically speaking, to ruin. We listened respectfully, for most of us did not remember hearing of the great Giudotti, but Willie replied coolly:

”Oh, yes; we met him often; he was my wife's teacher. Loulou, I wish you would sing that little thing of Mickiewicz, '_Panicz i Dziewczyna_,'

which Giudotti set for you.”

Loulie was leaning back on a sofa across the room, lazily swaying her big black lace fan. She had on a lovely gown of real black Spanish lace, and a great bunch of yellow roses on her bosom, which you would not have thought would have looked well with her red hair; but they suited her ”Venetian colouring,” as her husband called it--

”Ni blanche ni cuivree, mais doree D'un rayon de soleil.”

Willie's strong point, or his weak point, as you may consider it, was in quotations. She did not seem any too well pleased with the request, and replied that she hardly thought people would care to hear any music; it seemed a pity to stop the conversation--for all but herself were chattering as fast as they could. But of course we all caught at the idea, and the hostess was pressing, and after every mortal in the room had entreated her, she rose, still reluctantly, and walked across the room to the piano, saying that she hoped they really would not mind the interruption.

It sounded fine to have something specially composed for her, but we were accustomed to hear f.a.n.n.y Deane, the most musical one among us, sing things set for her by her teacher--indeed, rather more than we could have wished; and I thought now to hear something of the same sort--some weak little melody all on a few notes, in a m.u.f.fled little voice, with a word or two, such as ”weinend,” or ”veilchen,” or ”fruhling,” or ”stella,” or ”bella,” distinguishable here and there, according as she sang in German or Italian. So you may imagine how I, as well as all the rest, was struck when, without a single note of prelude, her deep, low voice thrilled through the whole room:

”Why so late in the wood, Fair maid?”

I never felt so lonely and eery in my life; and then in a moment the wildly ringing music of the distant chase came, faint but growing nearer all the time from the piano, while her voice rose sweeter and sadder above it, till our pleasure grew more delicious as it almost melted into pain. The adventures of the fair maid in the wood were, to say the least, of a very compromising description; but we flattered ourselves that our course of realistic fiction had made us less provincial and old-fas.h.i.+oned, and we knew that n.o.body minded this sort of thing abroad, especially the Russians, of whom we supposed Mickiewicz was one till somewhat languidly set right by Mrs. Williams.

After that her singing made a perfect sensation all about Boston, the more because it was so hard to get her to sing. Her style was peculiar, and was a good deal criticised by those who had never heard her. She never sang anything any one else did--that is, anybody you might call any one, for I have heard her sometimes sing something that had gone the rounds of all the hand-organs, and make it sound new again; but many of her songs were in ma.n.u.script, some composed for her by Giudotti, and others old things that he had picked up for her--folk-songs, and ballads, and such. She always accompanied herself, and never from any notes, and very often differently for the same song. Sometimes she would sing a whole verse through without playing a note, and then improvise something between. She always sang in English, which we thought queer, when she had lived so long abroad; but she said Giudotti had told her always to use the language of her audience, and Willie, who had a pretty turn for versifying, used to translate for her. We felt rather piqued that she should ignore the fact that we too had studied languages, but we all agreed that she knew how to set herself off, and indeed we thought she carried her affectation beyond justifiable limits. She had to be asked by every one in the room, and was always saying that it was not worth hearing, and that she hoped people would tell her when they had enough of it, though, indeed, she could rarely be induced to sing more than twice. If her voice was praised, she said she had none; and when she was asked to play, she would say she could not--she could only accompany herself. A likely story--as if any one who could do that as she could, could not play anything!--and we used to hear her, too, when she was in her own house, with n.o.body there but her husband. As for him, he overflowed with pride and delight in her music, and evidently much more than pleased her, and sometimes he even made her blush--a thing she rarely did--by his remarks, such as that if we really wanted to know how Loulou could sing, we must hide in the nursery. It was while singing to her baby, it appeared, that the great Giudotti had chanced to hear her, and immediately implored the privilege of teaching her, for anything or nothing.

Minnie Mason said that it was impossible that a woman could sing like that unless she had a history; and she spent much of her time and all of her energy for several weeks in finding out what the history could be.

It was wonderful how ingeniously she put this and that together, until one day at the club she told us the whole story, and we wondered that we had never thought of it before. It seems that before Loulie Latham was married there had been a love-affair between her and Walter Dana. It is not known exactly how far it went, but her feelings were very much involved. She was too young, poor thing, and too simple, to know that Walter Dana was not at all a marrying man; he could not have afforded it, if he had wanted to ever so much. He was the sort of young man, you know, who never does manage to afford to marry, though in other respects he seemed to get on well enough. He had pa.s.sed down through several generations of girls, and was now rather attentive, in a harmless, general sort of way, to the married women, and came to our dances.

”And then,” said Minnie, ”when he did not speak, and she was so suddenly left alone, and nearly penniless, after her mother's death, and Willie Williams was so much in love with her, and so pressing--though I don't believe he was ever in love with her more than he was with a dozen other girls, only the circ.u.mstances were such, you know, that he could hardly help proposing, he's so generous and impulsive. But he is not exactly the sort of man to fall in love with, and his oddities have evidently worn upon her; and now she feels with bitter regret how different her life might have been if she could have waited till her uncle left her this money. Walter has got on better, and might be able to marry her now, and she is young still--only twenty-nine. It is the wreck of two lives, perhaps of three. Willie is most unsuspicious, but should he ever find out----”

We all shuddered with pleasurable horror at the thought that we were to be spectators of a Russian novel in real life.

”I have seen them together,” went on Minnie, ”and their tones and looks were unmistakable. Surely you remember that Eliot Hall german he danced with her, the winter before her mother's death--the only winter she ever went into society; and I recollect now that he seemed very miserable about something at the time of her marriage, only I never suspected why then.”

”How very sad!” murmured Emmie Richards, a tender-hearted little thing.

”It is sad,” said Minnie, solemnly; ”but love is a great and terrible factor in life, and elective affinities are not to be judged by conventional rules.”

For my own part, I thought Willie Williams a great deal nicer and more attractive than Walter Dana, except, to be sure, that Walter did talk and look like other people. Perhaps, I said, things were not quite so bad as Minnie made them out. It was to be hoped that poor Loulie would pause at the brink. A great many such stories, especially American ones, never come to anything, except that the heroine lives on, pining, with a blighted life; and I thought, if that were all, Willie was not the kind of man who would mind it much. Very likely he would never know it.

Blanche Livermore said the idea of a woman pining all her days was nonsense. All girls had affairs, but after they were married the cares of a family soon knocked them all out of their heads. To be sure, Blanche's five boys were enough to knock anything out; but Minnie told us all afterward, separately, in confidence, that it was a little jealousy on her part, because she had been once rather smitten with Walter Dana herself. This seemed very realistic; and I must say my own observations confirmed the truth of Minnie's story. Mrs. Williams did look at times conscious and disturbed. One night, too, Tom and I called on them to make arrangements about some concert tickets. Willie welcomed us in his usual cordial fas.h.i.+on, saying Loulou would be down directly; and in ten minutes or so down she came, in one of her loveliest evening dresses, white embroidered c.r.a.pe, with a string of large amber beads round her throat.

”I am afraid you are going out, Mrs. Williams; don't let us detain you.”

”Not at all,” she said, with her usual indifference. ”We are not going anywhere. I was waiting upstairs to see the children tucked up in their beds.”

It seemed like impropriety of behaviour in no slight degree to f.a.g out one's best clothes at home in that aimless way, but when in ten minutes more Mr. Walter Dana walked in, her guilt was more plainly manifest, and I shuddered to think what a tragedy was weaving round us. Only a day or two after, I met her alone, near nightfall, hurrying toward her home, and with something so odd about her whole air and manner that I stopped short and asked, rather officiously perhaps, if Mr. Williams and the children were well.

”Oh, yes; very--very well, indeed!” she threw back, in a quick, defiant tone, very unlike her usual self; and then, as I looked at her, I perceived to my dismay, that she was crying bitterly. I felt so awkward that I did not know what to say, and I stood staring, while she pulled down her veil with a jerk, and hurried on. I could not help going into Minnie's to ask her what she thought it could mean. Minnie, of course, knew all about it.

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